by Mallory Hill
He held me tightly. “This is all you, Laura. You’re changing things.”
It was happening. It was really happening. I felt almost dizzy it was so impossible. But the day had only just begun.
We worked out the details until Dad had to leave for work. I waited around for a while, pretending to be “sick and being watched by Annie.” Then I made my way to the terminal.
It was pretty crowded with all the delivery people loading the cars. I tried to blend in. They didn’t have any distinct uniforms, so it wasn’t hard to make my way into a full car and squeeze between some boxes.
I felt the train jerk into motion. It was all really happening.
Chapter 32
<<<
I didn’t relax for a moment on that train. Wedged between those boxes, totally alone and in no immediate danger, I feared for my life. I felt like at any moment the tunnel would cave in and everything would be lost. I realized the horrible irony that I was now terrified of dying. Too much rested on me for me to just vanish.
The train stopped. Was I actually home? Dad had said to get off as fast as possible before the market volunteers arrived to unload the cars. So I crept out into the darkness.
I’d never been in the market basement. I’d known it was there for storage and everything, but I hadn’t imagined a train ran through it. And I had no idea how to get out. Thankfully, there were exit signs up to guide me. I found the stairs and moved up carefully in case I still wasn’t in the clear. Then the door.
I could have thrown up I was so surprised it was really there. I was in the middle of the market, that monstrous supply building I’d shopped in all my life. But I couldn’t freak out. There were people, living people! So I had to keep to myself and get out quickly.
Nothing had ever been so beautiful as the city that morning. Everything was still there, buzzing right along without me. I was right in the center, in the heart of it all.
But there wasn’t time for nostalgia. I needed to find Mom. She’d probably be at her studio by now. That was tricky. The studio would be full of artists I’d worked with and knew very well. I could only hope they were all hard at work in their own rooms.
The building wasn’t far. I entered feeling like it was a dream. But it smelled the same, like wet paint and woodchips, and the same stains were speckled across the stairs. I heard familiar voices harmonizing across hallways and floors. This place was a miracle, a little piece of heaven on earth.
I reached Mom’s door. I heard her voice come billowing out to mingle with the others. My heart stopped for a second. There’d been a time when I truly believed I’d never see her again, that she was lost to me forever until the end of time when our drifting souls reunited in the emptiness. But she was there, just on the other side of the door, loud and lively as she’d always been. Not wanting to interrupt, I opened the door as silently as possible.
There she was. Singing and painting and beautiful, my mother. She had her back to me and hadn’t noticed me come in. It was all I could do not to stare at her for the rest of my life.
“Mom?” I squeaked.
She spun around with a smile. Then she seemed to realize I was supposed to be dead. She dropped her paintbrush, splattering her shoes and skirt. She stared at me, unable to speak.
I shut the door and approached her slowly. “Mom, I need you to hear me out… The train doesn’t kill us. I’m alive. I’m really here. Do you understand?”
Still staring, she nodded.
“On the other side, there’s a farm. I’ve been working there these last few months. They wouldn’t let me come back, and I’m not supposed to be here now. But I had to come see you. I have to tell everyone the truth, and I need your help.”
She nodded again, tears filling her eyes. “Laura.”
“Right, it’s me. But I’m kind of different now. I actually have a boyfriend over there. Do you remember Will Noble? We used to go to school together.”
She laughed a little bit though still in shock.
“Yeah, he’s wonderful, Mom. I had to leave him, but he knows it’s for the best… I left him with Dad.”
She fell to the floor, her whole body shaking as she sobbed. I ran to her and tried to calm her down.
“I know this is a lot,” I said, “but I really need you to be quiet. Nobody can know I’m here yet or I’m in big trouble.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded, stroking my hair and shaking a little.
Then, just to get it out of my system, I hugged her so tightly it must have hurt her. With any luck, this wouldn’t be my life for much longer and I could commit to a two-parent arrangement.
“You’re here,” she whispered.
I sensed she’d stabilized and drew back a little bit. “I’m here.”
She smiled. “And you found him?”
I nodded. “Dad’s a leader. He runs the whole arts community from over there.”
She wiped a couple fresh tears from her face. “Does he really? He’s happy?”
“He’s miserable, Mom. He needs you. So if you’ll help me, we’re going to get him back.”
She nodded. “Tell me what to do.”
I tried not to freak out that my plan was actually working so far. “We need a mural night. Tonight at the wall above the terminal.” I pulled out my sketch. “This is what it’s like on the other side. Dad works here, I work here, and Will works there.” I pointed to the various locations.
She touched the paper. “You made this?”
I couldn’t help feeling a little bit proud. “Yeah, but I can’t put it on the wall by myself. Can you set up a mural night without letting anyone know I’m here?”
She grinned. “You’ve never seen us put one together, have you? Listen.” She got up and opened the door. She sang out into the hall. “Mural night!”
After a moment, other voices began echoing it back, changing the tune and adding all sorts of riffs. Eventually, someone sang, “Where?”
Mom turned to me. “Want to try it?”
No one really knew my voice. I leaned out the door. “The wall above the terminal!”
They echoed it back in affirmation. One guy even sang, “We’re finally getting that hideous wall!”
Mom laughed and grabbed her purse, leaving her paints out and her brush on the floor. The mural song was still going as she ushered me out.
We raced home before anyone could see me. Home. My actual home!
Mom threw her bag down and pulled me onto the couch. “Tell me absolutely everything! The whole story. Every detail of every day.” Same old Mom.
“It’s not that exciting. I work on a farm with a bunch of dorks.”
“The boy!” she cried. “Tell me about the boy!”
I blushed. “Okay… God, I don’t know. He’s just perfect.”
She squealed. “I want to meet him!”
I nodded. “I know but it might be hard. He was sent away for assault. It was a misunderstanding. He got in a fight with some guy who wasn’t following ration suggestions. He was going to be a cop before it happened. But now he’s a prisoner and the prison tortures people over there. That’s why we were trying to get out. It was going to kill him.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh… Well, doesn’t he sound like an adventure?”
“But he’s so nice and he’s gorgeous and he just gets me. It’s not easy, but I think I’d just do anything for him.”
I wondered if he knew yet. Dad would probably hold off telling him anything until he was sure I’d made it.
“And what does your dad think of that?”
I shrugged. “He was kind of upset at first, but I think he’ll get used to the idea. They’re going to be spending a lot of time together now, so he doesn’t have much of a choice.” I was kind of insanely jealous of both of them. Will got the dad I hadn’t had for eight years, and Da
d got the boyfriend I was crazy about. It was all sorts of unfair.
“Well, we’ll all get acquainted eventually. How do we bring them back?”
“Dad has influence on that side, and we’ll spill the secret on this side. It’s not so much bringing them back as it is uniting the sides. We do actually need the farm and factories and things over there, so they can’t just disappear. It just won’t be cut off from everything anymore. We can take the trains both ways knowing there’s no big risk to it.”
She nodded. “Do you have a way of communicating with him?”
“He said there are computers in the ticket office that I can access. Once we get the word out, I can send a message to management and he’ll be on the receiving end. The leaders will have no choice but to open the trains. The system is built on secrecy and once that’s gone, everything collapses. It’ll take time, and they’ll have to work out the technicalities. We might all have to get time cards and deal in credits, but we won’t have to break families and live in fear.”
She took a moment to think all that through. “And it all starts with our mural. I never dreamed I’d do anything so political. I’ve never been much of a statement artist; it’s kind of weird I raised one.”
I shrugged. “I’m just obsessively big picture. If it’s not gigantic, it goes right over my head.”
She laughed. “Good to know.”
That was a gorgeous day. Mom hadn’t even touched my room, so in a way, I felt like I’d never left. But as the sun sank lower in the sky, I knew it was coming. The hour of change was upon us, and it was all up to me.
Chapter 33
<<<
The artists were their same cheerful selves with their expressive clothing and borderline obnoxious volumes. Jason was even in the process of building his signature bonfire as we arrived. Unfortunately, I couldn’t spend the night admiring his work like usual. I had to be the focal point of the whole operation. Which was terrifying for someone whose sole objective had at one point been to disappear.
I looked at the wall, trying to picture my mural up there. People were already setting up the scaffolding. I was about to become a permanent part of the city.
“Attention everyone!” Mom called. “We’ve been commissioned for a very special project tonight. I need everyone’s attention so we can get this just right.” They crowded around her, laughing and cheering. I was caught on the edge of the crowd.
“Most of you know my daughter’s train came in recently,” Mom continued. They shouted condolences and encouragement, but she hushed them. “Thank you for your support both with Laura and my husband Kyle all those years ago. You’ve become my family, and I know many of you have suffered losses of your own. Tonight, we not only honor our lost loved ones, we have a chance to save them.” I saw her searching for me. “Honey, it’s all you.”
I pushed my way to the center. I watched as the people I’d grown up calling my aunts and uncles began to recognize me. The crowd fell absolutely pin-drop silent.
“Hi, everybody,” I said uncertainly. “I’m Laura, in case you didn’t know. And I’m supposed to be dead. Well, I’m not. Um…” They were staring. I hated staring. I cleared my throat. “So basically, when you get on the train, you go to a place called Terminal B. It’s a city for people who don’t fit in. Depending on the reason you took the train, you’re assigned a job. Mine was on a farm, most people work in factories, prisoners get electrocuted at a power plant all day, and people like my dad become career leaders and run our entire community from behind the wall. And I actually drew a picture of all that which is what we’ll be painting tonight.
“The thing is, all these people have to live cut off from their families and their homes. If someone has a baby over there, it’s shipped here immediately, alone and with no idea where it came from. We’re treated like we’re dead, and I just can’t stand that. I can’t stand that we’ve been lied to for years and no one’s done anything about it. So I broke out. I’m not sure exactly what happens if I’m caught, so I’d appreciate your discretion for a little while. But I also need you to tell everyone you know the truth about the people they lost. You guys have all these extraordinary gifts and talents, and I’m asking you to use them for the good of the greater community. It starts with this mural, but it endures through the individual messages you can share.
“I know I’m asking you to take a risk. We’re basically starting a revolution tonight, but it needs to happen. If I have to, I’ll paint the whole thing by myself, and it’ll end up being a big, ugly blob that only gets attention for being awful. But at least it’ll get attention.”
Everyone was still staring. I really hadn’t counted on making a speech, but now I had to wrap it up and hopefully get this thing done.
“So,” I said awkwardly. “Anyone willing to help?”
They weren’t responding. “Guys, it’ll be fun, I swear. You can do whatever you want with colors and details. Seriously, though, I kind of need an answer before the sun comes up.”
Mom stepped in. She held up my sketch. “This is our design. Let’s get to work, lovelies.”
Sure, they listened to Mom. The passionate, should-be dead girl gets blank stares, but art goddess Jane gets her obedient following’s full support. Oh, shut up, Laura, at least they got moving.
I followed Mom around as she and some others went over scaling the image to decently fill the space. Then they started marking where the buildings would go and outlining the tunnel border. They got loud and bubbly again in no time flat and just completely fell in love with their work.
Someone tapped my shoulder.
“You are so lucky I had dinner with my parents today,” Patrick said, staring at me in mild disbelief.
I threw my arms around him. “Oh my God, it’s really you!”
He laughed. “I’m not the one who died, remember? What was that about anyway? Telling me you were still searching? You could have told me the truth.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry. I was kind of in a dark place.”
“No kidding.” He looked up at the wall. “I guess you found your masterpiece though.”
“In a way. How’ve you been?”
He shrugged. “I mean, one of my oldest friends recently killed herself, so you know, pretty insulted.”
I stared at him, hoping no one had heard. “How do you know that?”
He sighed. “You’ve been depressed for years. You hid it well enough most of the time, but I do have some mental health training. That being said, please ask for help next time you’re in a dark place. I know you think therapy’s a joke, but it could actually save your life.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
He smiled. “So how’s death?”
“Well, don’t tell anyone, but I actually made friends over there.”
He gasped. “Laura Baily, who are you?”
“I know, it’s so weird. I also may or may not have a boyfriend now.” I felt myself blush.
His eyebrows shot up. “And I officially don’t believe you’re the same person. God, maybe our moms will finally stop pushing for us to get married.”
I laughed a little. “I doubt it.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, we’re pretty much stuck with that. So I know I’m just a lowly, unskilled doctor, but am I allowed to contribute tonight?”
“You know what? I’d actually be honored.”
Maybe I’d never really paid attention before, but the artists really took murals seriously. They actually painted the leaves on the farm trees and the tiny bricks of the buildings. Mom threw some strange colors into the mix, but they actually didn’t seem out of place. Maybe there had been a slight blue tint to the management building, and maybe the farm had been more orange than I’d realized.
It was beautiful, way better than my sketch. We all stood back and stared at it once we’d finished. It was just a couple hours from dawn
, but I was hardly tired. My work was up on that wall for all to see. I looked around at the artists. This meant something to them too, more than just the camaraderie of a night among friends. It was the realization that they had the power to create such things and alter the world we lived in.
We all went home. There was nothing else to do. I stayed home most of the time over the next few days, letting rumors circulate. Occasionally, I’d walk past the mural only to see at least half a dozen people at a time studying it. I went with Mom to the market and overheard people talking about the girl who’d come back to life. Patrick informed me that the hospital had stopped suggesting the train to terminally ill patients, which gave me mixed feelings considering Grant’s experience. But the word was spreading.
I knew I had to come out of the shadows eventually. From what I gathered, people were pretty riled up over the stories I’d sent out, so it was time to enter the next wave of revolution. But I wasn’t sure how to do it. I didn’t have any way of gathering the masses, and, even if I did, I had nothing more to say to them. It seemed all I could do was let this thing evolve until people were willing to storm the tunnels and help me take on management.
It certainly seemed like we were getting there. The whole city seemed angrier all of a sudden. I couldn’t remember there being a single protest in all the years I’d lived there, but now little mobs were popping up everywhere, shouting and causing a general uproar over things they didn’t entirely understand. Some of them stormed the child care department, protesting the baby train and demanding they “send the babies back.” One of the artists had been particularly inspired by my very brief description of the hangman incident, and flyers depicting an excessively gruesome version of it were soon pasted to streetlights and telephone poles across the city.
I knew it was all for the best, but I couldn’t help feeling a tiny swirl of nausea that I was responsible for making the world so ugly. Reality was so abrasive and unsettling. I’d destroyed everyone’s sense of safety by shattering their illusion. They’d been so happy before, so joyful and ignorant. I’d brought fear into the realm of the living, exhumed it, rekindled it, and sent it in blazing. I hoped it was worth it.